PBI in Indonesia

Indonesia’s elections in 2004 resulted in a new parliament and new president.  However, although Indonesia’s first ever direct presidential election marked another step toward full democratization, the rule of law and human rights remain insecure.

According to Human Rights Watch the current issues include the resurgent power of the military in social and political affairs, ongoing impunity of security forces responsible for atrocities, abuses associated with armed conflict in Aceh province, repression in Papua, and disturbing signs of a return to intimidation of the press and criminalization of dissent.  

Indonesia was also one of the countries criticised in a statement made by the Asian Human Rights Commission during the inaugural meeting of the new UN Human Rights Council.  The AHRC claimed that the use of torture was widespread despite Indonesia having ratified the Convention Against Torture eight years ago.

In post-tsunami Indonesia, there is a widespread concern about the lack of civil society participation in the implementation of peace agreements. PBI are contributing to increasing local capacity for peace building efforts and reinforcing civil society to build a genuine and lasting positive peace via participatory peace education in Papua (partly funded by the British Embassy) and Aceh. Peace education involves:

• Carrying out monthly discussions on a culture of peace and facilitating workshops on conflict transformation among a broad spectrum of actors (viz. NGOs, INGOs, religious leaders, local government, police, the military, community members, women’s organisations, female activists and religious leaders).

• Drawing on the participants’ own conflict situation experiences and examples through demonstrations and role-play.

• Themes include: conflict de-escalation and prevention strategies, conflict analysis tools, drawing on local traditions, values and wisdom to produce local models of conflict transformation, popular education, participatory and adult learning.

In 2006, the Indonesia project established two additional Participatory Peace Education (PPE) teams, one in Banda Aceh and one in Jayapura. This served to increase our communication with teams in the area, allowing us to offer regular feedback and support to local NGOs, as well as maintaining the activities of regular peace workshops.

Find out more about PBI Indonesia's Participatory Peace Education programme.